This story started out being a
yuppie travelogue. I read one of those papers that was
written for travelers, written by some yuppified puke who was
going on and on about the beautiful lake he was on, the boating
trips he took, the extravagant meals he partook of. I was
going to write about how to go on one of those trips yourself at
no expense (requiring bilking old ladies out of their life
savings; and then, while at the destination, stealing boats
and skipping out on restaurant bills all in the name of a good
warmhearted vacation).

Instead, I decided to follow the
Mort Sahl philosophy of comedy. Whomever was running
the country at the time, Sahl would take him at his word and see
where it ended up. For example, after having gone
through the Red scare of the early 1950s, he knew that our leaders
wanted us to hate communists and especially Russia. Then, in
1956, when Eisenhower was going to have a summit with Kruschev,
Sahl had a field day. In Ambassador Warmheart, I have
more of a field hour than a field day, but politicians of any
stripe deserve whatever they get, I think.